Issue 19, 2023

Thymoquinone-loaded lipid nanocapsules with promising anticancer activity for colorectal cancer

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common worldwide. Depending on its stage, chemotherapy is usually given after surgery when CRC has already metastasized to other organs like the liver or lungs. Unfortunately, the current antineoplastics used for CRC therapies involve toxicity and side effects due to their lack of site-specificity. To overcome the drawbacks of heavy chemotherapy, this study proposes to assess the efficacy of thymoquinone (TQ), a bioactive constituent of black seeds (Nigella sativa), as an antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic agent on an experimental CRC model in mice. TQ was encapsulated in lipid nanocapsules (LNCs), used as nanocarriers, in order to increase its specificity and cell absorption. TQ-loaded LNCs (TQ-LNCs) have a diameter of 58.3 ± 3.7 nm and 87.7 ± 4.5% TQ encapsulation efficiency. In turn, in vivo studies showed that the intratumoral administration of TQ-LNCs decreased the tumor size in colorectal cancer bearing mice compared to the control group. TQ-LNCs were more effective than free TQ for inducing tumor cell death. These results highlight the potential of TQ entrapped in LNCs as an anticancer agent for CRC treatment.

Graphical abstract: Thymoquinone-loaded lipid nanocapsules with promising anticancer activity for colorectal cancer

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 יונ 2023
Accepted
31 יול 2023
First published
22 אוג 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale Adv., 2023,5, 5390-5398

Thymoquinone-loaded lipid nanocapsules with promising anticancer activity for colorectal cancer

M. Selmi, A. Salek, M. Barboura, L. Njim, A. Trabelsi, A. Lahmar, N. Lautram, E. Roger, T. Baati and L. C. Ghedira, Nanoscale Adv., 2023, 5, 5390 DOI: 10.1039/D3NA00445G

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